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12 March 2013, or Five:

A Tuesday in what shall be referred to as “the sunset weeks”, as my last refundancy days come to an end and I try to ignore the painful reality of returning to the workforce. I’ve been holding out for my dream job to manifest but it hasn’t happened so I’m heading back to the corporate world to see what I can make of it.

In any case, this Tuesday I am joined by my darling friends Helen and Chris who have come down to visit me and a couple of other bits of Tasmania for their first wedding anniversary. I love being the excuse for friends to visit this beautiful island, I honestly do.

TMAG last night.

We begin our day with breakfast at Basket & Green and then hit the highway for a DIY tour up through the Coal River Valley, starting with Richmond and heading back down. I’ve been up to Richmond once before but it was for a crazy reconnaissance mission for some edible lavender… don’t ask. There’s no real story. In any case, I haven’t really looked around Richmond properly. That’s what you can take away from this paragraph.

Richmond Bridge, OLD!

Yes, Richmond Bridge is old but old in the picturesque sense and not the booooooooriiiiiiiiiing sense. It’s very pretty and also functional, which is just how I like my bridges, and also most of my clothing. It’s apparently Australia’s oldest (known) large stone arch bridge, which is a title I’d be proud of too, and it was first opened in 1825. It’s a lovely place for a picnic and perhaps we should have ended our tour here with wine and cheese instead of starting here. NEVER MIND.

After the bridge, we spontaneously decide to stop at the Richmond Gaol and have a look around. History is very interesting, and often makes me glad to live in the current age. The solitary cells are creepy. I’m glad to have finally seen the Gaol, but it’s probably not going to be worthy of a repeat visit for me. Or even a photo in this blog post. Despite its pretty sandstone buildings.

Puddleducks!

The main part of the tour is for the wine, as any local who knows about the Coal River Valley will know. We make the executive decision to stop at three wineries, and I get to decide those three, which includes a certain amount of power but also responsibility. Here are one-sentence reviews of each.

Pooley Wines: charming location, lovely almost literal cellar door, oh my gosh there is a cellar door cat this is wonderful, wait why is my favourite wine always the most expensive one?Puddleducks: Please adopt me, oh except I don’t really like dogs but I suppose these corgis are cute, dear corgis please stop barking that’s really not necessary, oops I drank too much Bubbleduck, oh there’s literally a duck here I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE PUDDLEDUCKS!Frogmore Creek: What a lovely venue, what lovely wines, what a snooty old bint behind the counter.

Sorry, I’m not very good at one-sentence reviews.

Nice day for it.

We actually take our time because we’re in no great hurry, and in between Pooley and Puddleducks we stop at Wicked Cheese to grab some snacky lunch supplies, because I’ve stopped at Wicked Cheese before (that lavender time) and also because cheese. Puddleducks has a BYO Food policy to go with their wine so this is our lunch plan, and it’s an excellent decision.

It’s just a shame that Frogmore Creek is the final note on the tour… or is this the final note:

Nice haul.

Yeah, it is. That’s much better. Though it’s not actually our final note for the day! We manage to muster a second wind and head down to Ethos Eat Drink for dinner. It’s not my first time, but I’m not ashamed to admit it, and I’m very pleased to be going back again. It is delicious (of course) and I eat ox tongue for the first time, which is strange but not unpleasant (this is how I find myself describing most left-of-centre things I try at Ethos). Duckpond seems to be having a real whale of a time too, so cheers to him and cheers to our grand day out.